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the everyman memoirs

Oh, That I Were a Short Sleeper

Wednesday, 05 March 2014

I heard this feature on a morning news show last week about short sleepers. People who don't seem to need as much sleep as everyone else. Now, this always sounded like a bunch of crock to me. Because don't we all at some point or another (some of us do still) try and convince ourselves that we fall into this very category? Surely WE can get by on less. Surely WE will not be affected. Well apparently some of us actually aren't affected. For the record, I am not one of those people, as both me and my case of ZZZ-quil can tell you, but apparently this is a legit thing, and one that can be passed down the genetic line.

As the show introduced us to a few of these short sleepers, I was impressed. Impressed that there are people in this world who can actually function on one hour of sleep per night. Did you hear what I said??? One hour. To prove they were still in tip-top shape, the show ran them through a series of reflex tests, which they passed with flying colors. Something none of the "regular" people could do when asked to try short sleeping temporarily.

Watching these seemingly super humans, I was also kind of jealous. "I feel like I'm actually living my life," one of them said. And while I don't feel like sleep keeps me from living my life, the added life and accomplishment of short sleepers is not lost on me. I mean, think of how much more you would get done. It pains me to even think about it, and I've been forced to blame the above completely out of hand stack of to-read books on the fact that I'm not a short sleeper. It's the only way I would ever get through them, I'm convinced.